This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Peacemakers and Partisans Bishops and Political Reform in England 1213-1268 Ambler, Sophie Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. 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Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. 1 Peacemakers and Partisans Bishops and Political Reform in England 1213-1268 Sophie Thérèse Ambler PhD thesis King’s College London 2012 2 This thesis examines the role of bishops in political reform and rebellion in England, beginning with the return from exile in 1213 of Stephen Langton (archbishop of Canterbury 1207-26) and ending with the suspension in 1266 of five bishops for their involvement with the Montfortian revolution. Langton and his successor Edmund of Abingdon (archbishop of Canterbury 1233-40) created a model for episcopal involvement in the affairs of the realm, especially during times of discord between king and barons. Prioritising the peace of the kingdom, they maintained their loyalty to the king as well as his subjects so that they were empowered and incentivised to act as peacemakers. This obligation was developed by Langton’s biblical understanding of the clerical duty to ensure good government. When illegal or destructive royal policies caused baronial discontent that threatened civil peace, the bishops could step in to reform the king’s behaviour. Although they threatened ecclesiastical censure, Langton and Edmund never attacked the foundations of royal power. In contrast, the Montfortian bishops renounced their loyalty to the king. As partisan Montfortians, they were no longer qualified to act as peacemakers. Members of a regime that appropriated the bases of royal power and ruled in the king’s name, they advocated measures that their predecessors would have considered illicit and dangerous. The intellectual conflict created by this rupture is reflected in the actions and justificatory arguments of the Montfortian bishops, who had to construct their case from scratch in the crucible of political crisis. Their story provides an ideal-type for the study of political thought: exothermic ideology. Not the cause but the consequence of events on the ground, their arguments are not coherent as political theory but reveal the effect on the production of ideas exerted by external pressures and the internal conflicts of those who created them. 3 Contents Acknowledgements 4 Abbreviations 5 Introduction 7 Chapter one The form and importance of episcopal peacemaking 24 Chapter two Episcopal Unity and Royal Power in Thirteenth-Century England 62 Chapter three Episcopal Unity and Royal Power: England and Iberia in the Thirteenth Century 82 Chapter four Robert Grosseteste’s Writing on Kingship: its place in Montfortian reform 108 Chapter five The English Bishops in 1258 140 Chapter six From Peacemakers to Partisans: the conversion of the Montfortian bishops 167 Chapter seven The Montfortian Bishops and the Justification of Conciliar Government 188 Chapter eight The Aftermath of the Battle of Evesham 210 Conclusion 222 Bibliography 226 4 Acknowledgments I would like to thank my supervisors, Professors David Carpenter and David d’Avray, for their invaluable advice and support in writing this thesis. I am also grateful to Dr Richard Cassidy, Dr John Maddicott and Professor Björn Weiler for commenting on particular sections, and to my sister, Kate Ambler, for recommending the anthropological texts for chapter one. The thesis would not have been possible without three years of funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The Institute of Historical Research, in awarding me a Thornley Fellowship for the fourth year of the project, allowed me to research and write chapter three. 5 Abbreviations AM Annales Monastici, ed. H.R. Luard (5 vols, Rolls Series, 1864-69). Annales Londoniensis Annales Londoniensis, Chroncicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II, ed. W. Stubbs (Rolls ser., 1882), Vol. I. Book of Deeds The Book of Deeds of James I of Aragon: a Translation of the Medieval Catalan Llibre dels Fets, trans. D. Smith and H. Buffery (2010). Burton Annales Monasterii de Burton, 1004-1263, AM, i. CLR Calendar of Liberate Rolls (H.M.S.O., 1916-). CM Matthaei Parisiensis , Monachi Sancti Albani, Chronica Majora, ed. H.R. Luard (7 vols., Rolls ser., 1872–83). Coggeshall Radulphi de Coggeshall Chronicon Anglicanum, ed. J. Stevenson (Rolls ser., 1875). C&S Councils and synods: with other documents relating to the English Church, II, 1205-1313, ed. F.M. Powicke and C.R. Cheney (2 vols., Oxford, 1964), part I (1205-1265). CPL Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland 1198–1304, ed. W. H. Bliss (1893). CPR Calendar of Patent Rolls (H.M.S.O., 1906-). CR Close Rolls, Henry III (H.M.S.O., 1902-). Cronica Maiorum De Antiquis Legibus Liber. Cronica Maiorum et Vicecomitum Londoniarum, ed. T. Stapleton (Camden Soc., 1846). DBM Documents of the Baronial Movement of Reform and Rebellion, 1258- 1267, ed. R.F. Treharne and I.J. Sanders OMT (Oxford, 1973). Dunstable Annales Prioratus de Dunstaplia, A.D. 1-1297, AM, iii. EHD English Historical Documents: 1189–1327, ed. H. Rothwell (London, 1975). EHD II English Historical Documents: 1042-1189, ed. D. C. Douglas and G. W. Greenaway (London, 1981). EHR English Historical Review Flores Historiarum Flores Historiarum, ed. H. R. Luard (Rolls Ser., 1890). Foedera Foedera, Conventiones, Litterae et Acta Publica, ed. T. Rymer, new edn, Vol. I, part i, ed. A. Clark and F. Holbrooke (Record Comm., 1816). Gervase The Historical Works of Gervase of Canterbury, ed. W. Stubbs (2 vols., Rolls ser., 1880), Vol. II. 6 Gieben Gieben, S., ‘Robert Grosseteste at the Papal Curia, Lyonss, 1250: Edition of the Documents’, Collectanea Franciscana, 41 (1971), 340-393. GRHS Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi Benedicti Abbatis [by Roger of Howedon], ed. William Stubbs (2 vols., Rolls Ser., 1867). Grosseteste Letters The Letters of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, trans. F. A. C. Mantello and J. Goering (Toronto, 2010). Guisborough The Chronicle of Walter of Guisborough, ed. H. Rothwell (Camden ser., lxxxix, 1957). Heidemann Heidemann, J., Papst Clemens IV: Das Vorleben des Papstes und sein Legationregister (Münster, 1903). Mercken Mercken, H. P, F., The Greek Commentaries on the ‘Nicomachean Ethics’ of Aristotle in the Latin Translation of Robert Grosseteste Bishop of Lincoln. Vol. III. The Anonymous Commentator on Book VII, Aspasius on Book VIII and Michael of Ephesus on Books IX and X (Corpus Latinum Commentariorum in Aristotelem Graecorum VI, 3) (Leuven U.P., 1991). ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004), available online at http://www.oxforddnb.com Osney Annales Monasterii de Oseneia, 1016-1347, AM, iv. PR Patent Rolls, Henry III (H.M.S.O. 1901-03) RCWL The Royal Charter Witness Lists of Henry III (1226-1272) from the Charter Rolls in the Public Record Office, ed. M. Morris (List and Index Soc. 291-2, 2002), Vol. II. Royal Letters Royal and Other Historical Letters Illustrative of the Reign of Henry III, ed. W. W. Shirley (2 vols., Rolls ser., 1862-6). RSO The Register of Saint Osmund, ed. W. H. Rich Jones (2 vols., Rolls ser., 1883-4), Vol. II. Song of Lewes The Song of Lewes, ed. C. L. Kingsford (Oxford, 1963). TCE, i-xiii Thirteenth Century England, 13 vols. so far, i-iv, ed.